Carlingford, Co Louth, best place to live – online survey

The town of Carlingford, Co Louth, is the best place to live in Ireland this year, an online survey by LikePlace.ie suggests.

This past year, LikePlace.ie collected more than 6,000 ratings about life in Ireland, which revealed Carlingford, with a score of 4.5 out of 5, as the best place to live in 2011. The worst place to live this year? Dublin City, which drew a score of 2.8 out of 5.

The next top 3 best towns to live in are Skull and Portmagee, both scoring 4.4 out of 5, and Douglas, with a score of 4.3 out of 5.

The next top 3 worst towns to live in are Portlaoise (3.0 out of 5), Edenderry (2.9 out of 5) and Shannon (2.9 out of 5).

For the third year in a row, Co Donegal ranked as the best county to live in, scoring 4 out of 5. Co Sligo also drew the same score, with counties Louth and Cavan scoring 3.9 out of 5. Although survey respondent ‘Balls’ from Co Louth called his town, Drogheda, "the Calcutta of Co Louth.”

At the opposite end is Co Meath, with a score of 3.5 out of 5. Following Co Meath, three counties all scored 3.7 out of 5: Co Limerick, Co Wexford and Co Dublin.

‘Biffo’ from Co Dublin had this to say about Lucan: “Where does it begin? Where does it end? Nobody knows, or really wants to know. Estate after estate. And it’s claim to fame? John and Edward!”

Overall, Ireland scores 3.8 out of 5 as a place to live.

Brothers Ronan and Shane Diffly launched LikePlace in April 2009 as an online resource to help people find a community in which to live, via input from people all over Ireland.

To date, the site has gathered more than 6,000 entries for more than 1,800 places.